Tuesday, September 20, 2005

So there I was...

I'm truly sorry for the lack of devotion I've shown to my faithful readers. The past month has just flown. With all our advanced party leaving, us getting ready to return to the states, the E-5 exam, and taking 4 days of R&R to Qatar. I haven't really had the chance to sit down and put my thoughts to the computer. Where did I leave off? Our advanced party has made it back to the states which means we are soon to follow. The squadron that is supposed to take over for us should be here really soon and all we have left to do here in medical is pack up our records and medical books and we'll be ready for turnover. Just a few more weeks and I'll be back in the states with the woman I love, and my friends and family. Just thinking about this makes it even harder to sleep at night. I took the exam to see if I make E-5(HM2) on the 8th of SEP. Now all I can do is sit around and wait for the results to come out sometime in the end of NOV. I studied my ass off for this exam. I studied the last half of July, and the entire month of August just reading our manuals and what not. I really think it paid off too. It's a 200 question exam that we are required to take every MAR and SEP. Each test if different and they give us bibliographies on what stuff we should review for the exam. 75-100 questions of wich have to do with job specific items, 50 questions on Navy history and heritage stuff, and then another 50 questions on things that are related to being a Petty Officer Second Class in the Navy. Out of the entire 200 questions I think I had a problem with about 10-15 of them. So like I said I fell really confident about this exam. Your score on the exam isn't the only thing that you require to advance to the next paygrade. It's a multiple of your time in rate(How long you've been an E-4), your eval which is completed annually, your award points (Points aquired for certain ribbons or medals you've recieved as an E-4), and your PNA pionts (Points awarded for taking the exam before but not making the cut off). All of these scores are tallied up and that creates your final multiple. If your final multiple reaches the cut off multiple then you are advanced to the next paygrade. If not then you get those PNA (Passed but Not Advanced) points. I think there are one or two more things that weigh on your final multiple but I'm not quite sure what those are.So moving along... I got to go to Qatar for 4 days of R&R. It was good times once we finally got there. The groupd I went with was supposed to leave on the 10 th but our C-130 got cancelled two days in a row. Finally flew out on the 13th about 0100. I spent most of my time in Qatar at th pool or in the gym. They have a Chili's right there pool side. So most the time we just swam, played some water polo, and then ate at Chili's. The gym was amazing. From the time you walk in you'd think you were at an actual health club. The even had a spa where you could get a full body massage. I didn't partake in that though. I'll wait to get home for one of those. HINT HINT!!! Oh and let's not forget that your allowed three beers a night. Whoopee!!! Not that big on drinkin so I only drank one of my beers with dinner each night and sold the other two tickets to the guys I was with on R&R. There were some people that 3 beers were a little too much for them!!! Had a lot of pics from the whole thing but my camera was stolen from out table in the bar. One of the other guys bought a camera and took some pics the last night we were there so I'll put them up when I get them.So that about covers what I've been doing over the past month. As for whats happening around the base here. Nothing really going on other than these idiot insurgents blowing upour water lines and shooting rockets at the base every now and then. We went almost two months without an IDF (In-direct fire) attack cause the grunts went on a forced march through the desert and found most of the insurgants ammunition. Well it seems like they have restocked and are now playing their little games again. That's O.K. though. "They want to play games? We'll play games! We play our games. Do you know why they are called our games? Cause we always WIN!!!"As quoted by one of my RDC's in Boot Camp.So I have had a few requests to link some pages on my blog page. I would love to do so, but I can not do it right now. My web page is going to be undergoing some major cosmetic reconstruction. When that is complete I will put those links on here. That is all I have for now. I'll try to post a few more times before I go home. If not then I will catch you all on the flispside.Joshua